Where are you God?

It’s a place of desperation. I need God’s help, but where are you, God?

I’m tired, in pain, broken, alone and lost.

I want the struggle to be over. Right here and now.

I’ve been judged, and the stones are being thrown.

I’ve judged myself, and I’m drowning in guilt and shame.

I want it all over. Here and now.

Where are you, God?

Do something.

Where are you, God?

I don’t like the saying, ‘If you feel far from God, guess who moved?

It implies movement, a fluid relationship. That anything can change it.

Like there could be a separation, potentially even a divorce.

Perhaps the relationship is reliant on doing the right things at the right time and in the right way?

Maybe you have in your mind a list of compliance requirements to meet to ‘feel’ you are close to God.

Possibly others have told you to do this or that, and if you don’t or you don’t do it to their standards, then ‘it’s no wonder you’re ‘feeling far from God’

You collapse into ‘trying harder’ but never feel you get it quite right.

Depression deepens. Futility and despair link arms.

You sit with Job on a dust pile at the city dump and pick your sores.

Could someone else come and sit for a while and say nothing, but pray for a little relief? (that’s called being in church)

I believe God lives in our hearts full time and patiently waits until we still ourselves enough to focus and listen.

The voice of the Lord

This morning I was listening to my Daily Lectio. 

The reading was from Psalm 29.

As I listened to the reading, I thought of how, in the context of this loud ‘voice of the Lord’, we can feel small, even frightened by the force.

A sound of sheer silence

Then I remembered Elijah in his darkest burnout moment, and God coming to him out of the ‘sound of sheer silence’.

He said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.’

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. 

When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

Then there came a voice to him that said, ‘What are you doing here, Elijah?’ 1 Kings 19:11-13

All those loud ‘voice of the Lord’ type experiences – splitting mountains, wind, earthquakes, fire  – but in the end it was in the place of silence that Elijah found God.

God has not moved, but our awareness of God may well be drowned out by the wildness of what is going on around us.

We get bombarded with distractions, but the whisper is still there for us to hear.

Are you tuning yourself to be still enough to hear?

A whisper

Your voice can be loud
Smashing mountains
Exploding volcanoes
Cracking icebergs
Violent hurricanes

Your voice can be quiet
A whispered wind
A drop of rain
A babe’s first cry
A small cat’s purr

Where are you, voice?
I will listen
Clean my ears
A wisp of whisper to hear

Barry Pearman

Quotes to consider

• God wishes to cure us of two kinds of sickness: impatience and despair. Julian of Norwich
• All shall be well, and
  All manner of thing shall be well. Julian of Norwich
• It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister. Thomas Merton
• Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences; all events are blessings given to us to learn from. There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
• What’s the most important minute in life? I think it’s the next one. There is nothing we can do about the past, and we have limited influence over the hours and days to come. But the next minute—minute after minute after minute—is always full of possibility. Rick Hanson
• We can identify a spiritual truth by two criteria. First, it is infinitely simple. Second, it is infinitely difficult. This is the nature of stillness and silence. Amos Smith
• The self must know stillness before it can discover its true song. Ralph Brum
• In the inner stillness where meditation leads, the Spirit secretly anoints the soul and heals our deepest wounds. John of the Cross
• I used to think anxiety and insomnia drove me to success, but it was the stillness that let me be good at anything. When you extend the seconds of stillness, that’s when you’re able to think and learn. Russell Simmons

Questions to answer

1. Have you ever been in a storm or earthquake where you have feared for your life? What was it like?
2. What is the ‘noise’ that surrounds you that draws you away from listening for the whisper?
3. What is your first reaction to the sentence ‘If you feel far from God, guess who moved?

Formation exercise

• Read the two passages above each day for the next week. Write in a little notebook some brief impressions God gives you.

Further reading

Finding that Still Small Voice

How to Grow the Practice of Stillness for your Mental Health

Give your Mind the Spiritual Gift of Stillness

Barry Pearman

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

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